Highly conjugated organic materials, due to their interesting electronic and optoelectronic properties, are being investigated for use in a variety of applications, including organic semiconductors (OSCs), field effect transistors (FETs), thin-film transistors (TFTs), organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), electro-optic (EO) applications, as conductive materials, as two photon mixing materials, as organic semiconductors, and as non-linear optical (NLO) materials.
In particular, OSCs have attracted a great amount of attention in the research community due to their advantages over inorganic semiconductors, including easy processing, high mechanical flexibility, low cost production, and low weights. Polycyclic aromatic compounds, such as oligothiophenes, acenes, rylenes, phthalocyanens, and polythiophene, have been widely studied as semiconductor materials.
Among the organic p-type semiconductors, pentacene exhibits charge mobilities well above 1 cm2/V·s in organic field effect transistor devices. This number has been set up as a bench mark for new small molecule systems in terms of mobility requirements. However, due to the continuing need for improved performance and stability in semiconductor structures, there continues to be an unmet need to develop better performing OSCs that have improved mobility, are structurally stable, and applicable to the large number of potential applications seen in the various high technology markets.